I'm trying to set up Synthogy's Ivory virtual piano and would like advice on selecting a MIDI controller that feels like an acoustic keyboard.

I thought the easy solution to this problem was to get a keyboard similar to that used for the Ivory demos, a Kurzweil K2500, a Kurzweil K2600 and a Yamaha KX88. You might imagine my surprise when I searched the archives for these models and learned that these keyboards are considered out-of-date. For some reason I'm bothered by this. Is it the simple fact that really good pianists don't need really good keyboards?

In the meantime, since I'm not a really good pianist, I need a really good keyboard, hence, any advice you could give me would be appreciated.

Bob

used Kawai MP9500 or the new Kawai MP8. But they do cost a lot... or a doepfer http://www.doepfer.de/home.htm

Cheers, Bit

I agree with Bit.
I own a MP8 and I use virtual pianos, for me the AWA Grand PRO is the more faithful reproduction of a piano's mechanic.
You could buy an used MP9500 or a new CA-X in order to spend less than a MP8. Moreover the Kawai handle well midi signals.

Yamaha and Kawai keyboards are very nice and realistic especially in their hi end pianos. Well you need to pay much for such instruments and you re not gonna pay just for the keyboard but also for the many build-in sounds, drumsets, and features that you might not need. These kurzweil you mentioned are also good pro keyboards but also fairly expensive.
If i were you, given that i would use ivory mainly ,i would take a look in a good midi controller like m-audio's keystation pro 88. I dont know if its good or bad but i would try out what i really need, just a keyboard. Then if i wasnt satisfied i might start looking at stage pianos.

I would not give a try to Keystation Pro 88, it's nothing near a good digital piano keyboard. The same goes with CME UF8, popular lately. I would go for Kawaii with natural wood action AWA IV PRO, or for Yamaha (however there was a statement that it, especially P-models, does not handle midi well - true or false?) or even for new Privia line with a nice keybed. You can also consider Doepfer, Fatar and Kurzweil models.


M.

I owned a P90 and own a P120 and Yes, these models don't handle well midi signal, they have a limited dynamic range as for midi.
I coudn't play well my virtual pianos with them.

Thanks for the cautionary advice regarding a keyboard's ability to handle MIDI. Why would one keyboard handle MIDI better than another? It's not the sort of advice I would expect to get from a saleperson so I need to know how to read the specs.

The Kawai AWA Pro Action seems to get a lot of positive reviews in this forum, but little attention is given to the Kurzweil keyboards. When I searched the archives I found very few hits and the reviews were not overly positive. I've had some experience with the Yamaha and I now feel its' action is a little too firm for me and my finger-tips are starting to hurt a bit.

Suryaman, could you tell me about your experience with the virtual piano. Is the reproduction as good as the demos suggest?

1) From my point of view it's caused by bad programming only. Yamaha's keyboard is suited well to the integrated sampler (which acts as a digital piano inside the keyboard) and the "bond" with the sampler is so "strong" that MIDI signals are also shaped to its needs, and not to the specifiaction of 0-127 velocity range.

2) Kawai AWA Action, the latest IV even more is highly acclaimed and is said to be one of the best actions on the market. Kurzweil uses Fatar keybeds in their pianos, these are really good, however it's a matter of taste. I also don't know if Fatar actions are graded (by which I mean, that keys are more resistant at the low end)

3) It depends on the virtual piano software. There is a "virtual piano", that's the name, and I can't say anything about it. However I have played many sampled pianos including PMI Bosendorfer, Steinberg The Grand 2 and Akoustik Piano from Native Instruments. I had some problems with Akoustik Piano, don't know why though - it sounded dull and cheap, however the library is know to be one of the greatest - it must had been something in my config. What about PMI Bosendorfer and Steinberg The Grand 2 - they're just awesome. I prefer The Grand more recently and I play it on regular basis. The sound through good speaker system is awesome, and the piano is really responsive (however I do not have good keyboard yet, just simple midi controller with semi-weighted keys ). And what about Ivory you have mentioned in your first post... if you computer can handle it, it's a way to go.

Don't tell me you dumped your CLP280?

Horror!

Could you elaborate on this? Are you saying that the Yamaha sound engine is not constrained by the 0-127 velocity standard?

As for actions, just play as many as you can. Whether you like Roland, Yamaha, Korg, or Kawai is a matter of taste. Personally, I prefer the Roland actions. I'm not crazy about the Fatar actions and the Doepfer is even worse in my opinion.

As for virtual instruments, the one that's making the most buzz around the industry is definitely Ivory. I've been very disappointed by the Native Instruments piano. I actually haven't heard anyone who likes it yet.

I still record my acoustic when time/budget permit. But in a pinch, Ivory is a great tool to have at my disposal!!!

Mati,

I'm confused by your remarks. I don't melieve that Yamaha has ever advertised their digital pianos (especially Clavinovas) as general purpose midi master controllers (which would explain the total absence of pitch bend, modulation wheel, sliders, nobs, or ribbon interfaces). The midi in/out on the P/CLP/CVP series exist primarily to allow interfacing with external sequencing applications/software and not neccessarily external tone generators. In other words, a sequence that was created by the digital piano but recorded externally will sound exactly the same when played back to the digital piano.

For general purpose midi with an 88 key weighted keybed, look to Yamaha's S (synth) lineup (S08/S80/S90/S90ES), or the Motif8/Motif ES8/Mo8 lineup. These boards have excellent master contoller capabilities.


I'm curious as to why you think Yamaha should make their digital piano linup suitable as a master controller since the target market is completly different???

Rodney

Of course Yamaha did not advertise their digital pianos as master keyboards, however it's quite unanticipated and abnormal that keyboard with midi-out can't send full linear velocity range. As to SteveY, I can't really elaborate on this, because I have never studied Yamaha engines and their keyboards and have never really tested their MIDI response. However from many sources I know that Yamaha PXX connected via MIDI to external sound generator, or just - midi interface - can't respond with full velocity range (of 0-127) which is expected by virtual instruments. This by all means makes it virtually impossible to use as a master keyboard because of irregular dynamics sent by MIDI. Considering Rodney's point of view, as we treat Yamaha's MIDI implementation as single purpose record and playback one, that makes no problem. It will work that way. The instrument, despite great keyboard, is pretty useless if you want to use virtual samplers with it though. As contrary, most of other brands (Roland, Kawaii, Casio) of digital pianos features full implementation of MIDI specifications for velocity range and their keyboards can be used with external synths (as far as I remember, Roland advertises RD series that they can be easily used as master controllers with external samplers) successfuly. Of course, no pitch bends or something there - it is a digital piano, not a master keyboard. But it CAN work that way. Yamaha cannot.

So the keyboard must not only feel good but must have the appropriate MIDI capabilities to get the best performance out of the virtual piano software. But I'm still not clear on how to specify what those MIDI capabilities should be. Although Synthogy makes very clear what the computer requirements should be, they say very little about the keyboard, that's why I was interested in the keyboards used in the demos.

Not long ago SteveY kindly gave me a tutorial on the importance of the software velocity curves and how the they could be changed to alter the "feel" of the keyboard. Steve explained that these curves translate a velocity measurement, 0,1,2,...,127, made by the keyboard into a output loudness level.

What confuses me is that a velocity level of "x" probably means different things for different keyboards since the mechanical structures would be different. In the extreme case, I could have a cheap keyboard that is basically ON/OFF and this would be encoded by velocity levels 0 or 127. Having great software with programmable velocity curves isn't going to change the feeling of the keyboard here. I could then have a "stiff" keyboard where it would be hard to get values above 64 and another "light" keyboard where most the values might be above 64.

Moreover, when I test a given keyboard, I'm actually testing the velocity curve used in that piano's computer. In fact I could have two keyboards having the same mechanical properties, but whose companies chose to program different velocity curves. To get ridiculous about this, for all I know the Roland and Yamaha keyboards are exactly the same and they have only programmed different velocity curves.

SteveY I have a question for you. When you play your Roland keyboard in its' natural state, and then you use it to trigger Ivory, what happens? Then suppose a player comes to your studio and he/she wants a simulated Boesendorfer. Do you have velocity curves that effectively invert the Roland velocity curve and layer on it the Boesendorfer curve?

Finally, Mati now has me worried that some keyboards may not properly encode the velocity measurement for the outside world via Midi since the velocity measurement was designed only to trigger the internal velocity curve. For all I know my CLP-280 might not be a good interface for Ivory since I have no idea what the velocity-to-Midi relationship is.

It seems that to get a good keyboard, one has to separate the mechanical action from the underlying velocity curves. This is getting as bad as choosing an acoustic piano. I am obviously thinking too much about this problem.

Yeah, you are too much thinking about the problem I suppose Yamaha is the only brand which has _some_ problems with MIDI implementation. Every other piano, Roland, Kawai, Casio, or other will have sufficient MIDI implementation to serve as a master keyboard. If something is not to your liking, you are always able to alter the velocity curve using Synthogy Ivory to match the keyboard action with response as much as possible. _Maybe_ it is also possible to correct Yamaha problems with playing around with velocity curves, however it might be a bit tricky.

FYI -- The RD700 has both pitch bend and modulation via the familiar Roland lever.


Regarding Yamaha's MIDI implementation, I'm not sure this is true. I know that there were some issues with previous models years ago, but it would shock me if the current P series were unable to transmit 0-127 velocity. Of course, that's easily tested. Any P-series owners care to try it. Mati, if you don't have first-hand experience with this, I question your decision to post the information.

I do not have first-hand experience, that's true. That is why I'm not trying to convince anybody about the rightness of the statement, it's just rumours I have heard from many sources in some way confirmed by Suryaman. It would be really nice if somebody with P-series tried to test it, because it should be cleared out if there are problems with MIDI or it's only a myth based on older models.

OK I'll stop thinking so much.

One conclusion seems to be that I have to check with Tech Support to insure that whatever keyboard I ultimately choose has the ability to transmit 0-127 velocity levels via Midi-out.

Does it then follow that by manipulating the velocity curves in Ivory I could then make a Roland keyboard feel like a Yamaha keyboard? If not, why not?

SteveY: When you play your Roland keyboard into Ivory's Steinway D, and then you play your own acoustic Steinway, do they feel the same. If not, do you think you could program the velocity curves to make them feel more alike.

It seems to me, that for a given keyboard, designing the velocity curve in Ivory is the key to getting a digital piano experience that better approximates the feel of an acoustic.

Bob

velocity curves don't effect the touch of the piano (nor it's resistance) it may feel lighter/heavyer because of how hard you'll have to press to make a set sound but the quality of the action won't change nor the speed of repetition so there is no reason the keyboard would feel like another brand at all (or maybe i totally missed what you mean)

With Anvil as the sequencer and my P90 set to "soft", I was able to play from velocities ranging from 1 to 127.

You can't adjust the keyboard to match the action of an acoustic because the amount of weight it takes to depress the keys doesn't change. The only thing you can affect is how loud the note is when the key is hit with a particular force.

Thanks Bob. That's very helpful!!!

As much as I love my Roland, it doesn't even come close in reality. But I still find it to be the closest thing to the real thing.

I have read positive information that the Kawai ES4 as well as being a good gigging board also dose a good job as a controller.With none of the velocity issues that the P120/90 have.

Any ES4 owners concur with this?

The reproduction is very good but sometimes you have to tweak your virtual piano to make it sound good, for istance you have to remap some samples, change the velocity curve and so on.
Speaking for Ivory, it seems to be a piano "ready to go", you don't have to modify it that much.
It could be a good choice for a beginner in virtual piano world or for who doesn't want to waste time in tweaking.

Thanks to ranakor and Bob Muir I think I've gotten a better idea of the keyboard-pressure/velocity-curve interaction. But it still raises the following question:

Suppose I run Ivory's Steinway D. Implicit in the software is the velocity curve for that piano. But how was that velocity curve determined? Surely it depended on the keyboard that was used in the calibration. If I use a different keyboard with different mechanical action will I not need another calibration. If Bob Muir plays his Pxx and SteveY plays his Rolandyy they will have a different "Steinway" experience.

It doesn't seem smart to choose a software piano and a keyboard indepndently. But when I contacted Guitar center, they were not set up to allow me to choose the two simultaneously.

Clearly I don't know what I'm talking about, but it occurs to me that virtual pianos could get a bad reputation because care is not taken in marketing them correctly in the first place. Ideally there should be a store that allowed me to test the software piano, keyboard and speaker set-up simultaneously just the way one selects a home entertainment surround sound system.

Thanks for your patience. I've learned a lot.

Bob

I think it depends on what your goal is.

From your message, I gather that you want to hook up a keyboard to Ivory that gives you the best piano experience possible. If that's the case, then I don't think your fears about something like a KX88 being "old" are warranted. I played a KX88 with an old Kurzweil 1000PX serving as the piano sound for years (until both were recently stolen). I can assure you the KX88 has a great feeling keyboard and is built like a tank, and for that reason is still the choice of many touring and studio pros.

That said, while it has virtually unlimited MIDI controller capability, it's user interface is firmly grounded in the early 80's. If you want to delve into the subtle MIDI controller features, you'll have to dive into the manual and {shudder} actually become familiar with hex.

Getting back to your goal, however, if you just want to hook it up to Ivory and play away on a great feeling controller, I think a used KX88 in good shape (if you can find one) would be an excellent choice. I've seen them go on ebay for less than $500. You could go for a more recent instrument (such as a K2600 or S90 to name two), however as someone else pointed out you'll be paying for drums, strings, brass, guitars, and lots of other bells and whistles you may not want or need (then again, you might find having these sounds in addition to piano to be fun).

Oh, by the way, I remember the first version of the DX7-- being one of the very first instruments with MIDI-- had an issue with not transmitting maximum 127 MIDI velocity, but the KX88 certainly does (and I have to believe all subsequent Yamaha instruments do as well). I actually remember reading somewhere that the DX7 only transmitted MIDI velocity up to 100 because of confusion on the MIDI spec when Yamaha was developing the DX7.

My advice is to choose a keyboard based on it's own internal sounds. I think it's going to be too hard to audition actions w/Ivory in a store. If you like the action using a keyboard's internal sounds, you'll probably like it better w/Ivory.

And with all due respect to Dongna (especially on his first post), don't buy a KX88. It's the worst feeling controller I've ever owned. It was great for the 80's, but there's a reason that Yamaha doesn't make it anymore!!!

I heard that too, although I don't know if it's true. I bought the Grey Matter mod for my DX7. Remember that? It fixed the MIDI problem and also allowed it to send MIDI on all 16 channels. I believe it only sent on channel 1 without it.

I also remember when they were in such short supply in the US, that people were buying them overseas and converting the power supply for use here.

SteveY always gives good advice so I'll pick the keyboard based on it's own internal sound, and it won't be a KX88.

But I find it interesting that the demo files of Ivory's Steinway D played by Volker Rogall used the Yamaha KX88. I don't know anything about classical music, so I'm not one to judge, but the demos sounded pretty impressive. Does this just prove that a good sample set and a good pianist, any keyboard will sound good. So maybe the keyboard isn't as important as I am making it out to be?

Bob

The KX88 was the best controller around in the late 1980's. A lot of guys still use them because that's what they're used to. They were very road-worthy, so there are still a lot of them around. A lot of great music was made on the KX88. So yes, a talented player can make just about any keyboard work. My point is that it's not 1988 anymore. There are many keyboards available today that are superior to the action on the KX88. Don't worry too much about what everyone is saying here. Get out there and play. Ultimately you're not going to find the answer on this forum. You have to find out what works for YOU (not me or anyone else). Good luck and remember to have fun!!!

SteveY your advice is always right on the mark. Thanks to you and to everyone else who offered their opinions on this post.

I'll report back once I get my virtual piano up and running.

Bob